More of Northwest Arizona

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon
Continuing our May 2005 trek, we headed up into the high country to Jacob Lake and then south 45 miles to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Incidentally, there is no lake at Jacob Lake. Alas, there is just a small pond. It seems that early settlers in their zeal to encourage others to follow them called it a lake - something akin to the Greenland/Iceland stories. The north rim is quite different from the south rim. It is much more remote and not nearly as developed. Actually, the only development is that of the National Park Service within the park. There is a private accommodation outside the park about 25 miles north of the rim and a couple of motels back up in Jacob Lake, but that's it. The main thing is it is much higher in elevation here. The lodge is at 8255 feet and the highest viewpoint is at 8803 feet.

The lodge itself is quite impressive. The shot in the lower left picture was taken from the hiking path just below the rim. Below right is a poorly exposed shot showing the view from the sun room looking out towards the canyon.
Above left is a view of the dining room in the lodge. The view straight out is of Transept Canyon; the view out the windows to the left is the same as from the sun room and the terraces. On the right is a view of the magnificent wooden ceiling in the main lobby (yes, there are sprinklers all over the place; after all, it did burn down in the thirties just a few years after it was built). Overall, the place is quite rustic. The sleeping accommodations are in nearby cabins or equally rustic motel buildings. We stayed in the motel; it was quite nice, although small. As you might expect, there was no TV. Nor was there a pool. Oh darn. But unfortunately, cell phones have invaded the place. Since our last visit, there is now a cell phone repeater tower on the south rim. On certain portions of the terrace on the north rim (appropriately dubbed "cell phone alley") one can coax their cell phones into sending and receiving calls. Thus ends one of the primary attractions to the Grand Canyon!

I had thought that we would take the North Kaibab Trail a little ways down into the canyon. (The Kaibab Trail goes from rim to rim.) The canyon is roughly ten miles across, but the river is about 2 miles from the south rim, thus 8 miles from the north rim. So I assumed that since it traverses a longer distance, the trail from the north rim would be more gentle. Bad assumption. About two thirds of the vertical drop occurs in the first mile or so of the trail, and you have to go at least that far to get any kind of a view to make it worth while. We wisely decided not to do that, instead focusing on the trails along the north rim.

There are several hiking paths in the immediate vicinity of the lodge. Below left we are standing at Bright Angel Point, less than 0.5 mi from the lodge, accessible via a somewhat gentle, paved path. It provides one of the better views to the east and to the south across the canyon. In the left background you can faintly see Mt Humphreys, nearly 70 miles away. Oh, remember my fascination with desert trees? Well, it persists. Below right is a couple of trees growing out of a rock en route to Bright Angel Point. Note the root of the left tree as it finds its way into a crevice in the rock.
Two views from Point Imperial are shown above. It's located about 11 miles northeast of the lodge. If you are so inclined, you can hike to it, but there is a very nice road begging to be driven, so we drove. The elevation here is 8803. Unfortunately, the road south from Point Imperial to Cape Royal was closed. This past winter the north rim experienced 25 feet of snow, twice the normal amount! As a result, there was a significant increase in fallen trees which took much longer to remove. The precipice on the right is Mount Hayden, named for Sen Carl Hayden, the longest serving US senator (57 years). Barely visible in the background just above Mount Hayden is where the Little Colorado River empties into the Colorado River.

One of the unexpected treats was sighting the California Condor. (That is, if you are prone to classifying the sighting of a vulture a treat!) There are now 52 condors in the Grand Canyon National Park and four more are being readied for release from the pens up at Vermillion Cliffs (the rock bluffs shown at the top of the page). We were sitting on the patio at the lodge, and all of a sudden they appeared. One swooped very low, no more than 40 or so feet above us. I tried to get Dru to pretend she was dead so he would come back, but that didn't fly. Instead, she suggested that since condors are attracted to only the rottenness of meat, that perhaps I should be the one to play dead! In spite of this academic debate, I managed to get a fairly decent shot of #46, shown lower left. The birds are all tagged and numbered and carry small transmitters so they can be tracked regularly throughout the day. No privacy whatsoever. It's embarrassing. Oh, do you know what's in the picture on the right? Remember my tree fetish? Well, that would be a close up of Ponderosa Pine bark. Nice texture, I thought.
On our third day, since we had traversed all of the trails in the vicinity of the lodge, and since we were now well-adjusted to the altitude, we decided to do Widforss Trail. This is a 10 mile round-trip hike. There are several points of interest in the first 2.5 miles, so one could actually make it a 5 mile round-trip if desired. However, since we had gone to all the places that were open (except down into the canyon), we decided to take the 10-mile version. The pamphlet says it takes approximately 6 hours for the hike - it took us a mere 9 hours! Obviously, we took a lot of rest breaks, but then what else did we have to do with our day? When we started the hike, it was 37 degrees in the trail head parking lot. We had forgotten our light jackets and wondered if our tee shirts would be enough. They were. Within a half hour we were out in the sun and were sipping away from our water back packs. Below are a couple of scenes from that hike.
There are a lot of Ponderosa pines along this trail as well as many groves of Aspen. It would be a spectacular hike in the fall. On the left is a view looking down Transept Canyon. The lodge is located among the trees at the far left end of the canyon. On the right is a rock formation Dru call "the tea cup." Notice the cute little tree growing right in the middle of it.

So, we pressed on all the way to Widforss Point where we had our lunch. Believe it or not, there is a picnic table out there - don't know how they managed to get it there. The view from the point was really anti-climatic. There is nothing more to see from here than one can see from the lodge itself. But what else did we have to do with our day? On the way back we met Ranger Kyle who was also hiking out to the point. Apparently, all of the area rangers were there for training and they each had to literally "take a hike" to demonstrate their physical prowess. Ranger Kyle was from Flagstaff and loved to talk about the area. We asked him when he thought the road out to Cape Royal would be open. He informed us that it was open now! It had opened that morning! He suggested that we hurry back and take a ride out there. I wanted to tell him, "We are hurrying back, you fool," but I just smiled kindly at his thoughful suggestion. By the time we made it to the car we were in no mood for any more sight seeing. In fact, we went back to our room, cleaned up, went to the lodge for dinner, came back and crashed - at 8:30pm!! At least on this trip we waited until the last day to do ourselves in.
The next day was the drive home - west to St. George, UT, and then south on I-15. However, before we left, we did want to drive out and catch a glimpse of the now-open Cape Royal road. Above left is a rock formation called Angels Window. If you position yourself just right, you can frame the Colorado River in the window in the rock. (Here, you see a tiny sliver of the river just to the left of the rock.) There is a path (of sorts) that leads out on the rock for spectacular views of the surrounding area. Naturally, I couldn't pass up taking a photo of the tree growing right in the middle of it all (it's a mere speck in the left picture). Below left looks south from the viewpoint and shows some of the contrast in the rock formations. Below right are the Walhalla Ruins, dating from the 1200's AD. They were quite sophisticated structures for the time. We were surprised to find them here in such a remote area, way out on a relatively narrow sliver of a mesa, seemingly far from any source of water.

That was our trip. We had a great time in the high country. If you missed it, you can go back and catch our earlier adventures on this trip at Lake Havasu City, Lake Powell and the Vermillion Cliffs here.

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